Should the European Union pay prospective, or “candidate,” states to undergo legislative, rule-of-law reforms prior to accession even though becoming a state is not assured? In April, 2026, Marta Kos, the Commission’s commissioner for enlargement warned the E.U.’s parliament that the Commission might “suspect €1.5 billion in E.U. funding for Serbia due to rule-of-law concerns and contentious judicial reforms” that had been introduced in Serbia’s legislature in January.”[1] I contend that the legislative or constitutional proposals should have been sufficient to freeze the very question of Serbia’s accession, and that the Commission should not pay candidate states to undergo reforms in the first place.
That Serbia’s political
culture, at least with respect to its government, was worsening appreciably is
clear from Kos’s statement, “We are increasingly worried about what is
happening in Serbia. From laws that undermine the independence of the judiciary
to crackdowns on protesters and recurrent meddling in independent media.”[3]
Such crackdowns and meddling go beyond rendering a judiciary subservient to a
governing political group, and thus render Serbia unfit at least for the time
being for joining the E.U. as a state. At the very least, in other words,
Serbia should not be “eligible for E.U. funding to support its required
internal reforms.”[4] If
prospective states want to join the E.U., then they should be willing to pay
for their reforms themselves. Why, in other words, should the E.U. feel obliged
to pay? I contend that joining the E.U. is of such value to any outside
state-level republic that the E.U. should not in principle pay for candidate
states to get themselves into shape from a democratic standpoint.
Even on policy grounds, the
accession of Serbia was risky for the E.U., given the military aggressiveness
of Russia in Ukraine. That the E.U.’s parliament had “adopted a resolution criticizing
Serbia’s failure to align with E.U. foreign policy” against Russia in 2025[5]
should have been a wake-up call for the E.U., given Viktor Orbán’s intentional
undermining of E.U. foreign policy with regard to Russia. Did the E.U.
administration want another Hungary wielding its veto in the European Council
and the Council of Ministers in favor of Russia even as that country was still
invading one of its neighbors?
Therefore, Kos’s statement, “We
will continue to support Serbia on its E.U. path,”[6]
can and arguably should be subject to formidable critique. After all, the E.U.
was not so weak at the time, even given its refusal to expunge the veto-power
from states in the European Council, that the Commission should have been so desperate
to take in even marginal states. The greatness of the E.U. depended more in
making internal reforms at the federal level in line with the fact that the
member-states were semi-sovereign, than in enlarging. Just because Orbán had
just been voted out of office in Hungary does not mean that the intransigence
of one state in the European Council and the Council of Ministers could not
again hamstring federal foreign and military policy even in the face of the
Russian bear invading one of its neighbors on President Putin’s utterly
fallacious supposition that the old Russian empire should rise again.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
